No 3D Mario on Switch 2 yet seems to have short-circuited a lot of folks

[Mnementh]

burninmylight said:

angrypoolman said:

those star fox games crashed and burned because they were garbage. 

i know, i know. who am i to say theyre garbage, another instance of me saying what i like is superior and what everyone else likes doesnt matter blah blah blah

well guess what, theyre garbage. baldurs gate 3 wasnt garbage which is why it was able to re establish relevance again. maybe they should make a star fox that isnt garbage, which is what this remake could have been.

and yes you must be a teenager because you must not remember ten years ago when star fox zero was in development. people were absolutely hyped for that game because it looked like it was going to be a return to form. but no, they decided to fuck with it and now it is generally regarded as more garbage. they havent given star fox a fair shot, they always are doing some bullshit with it, which is why the franchise sucks now. what i am saying is so obvious to anyone who has been around and paid attention just a little bit.

Garbage or not, every Star Fox game after N64 ended up being something fans didn't want or ask for, and either didn't do well critically, came with a hated gimmick, or launched on a dead/dying console (or a combination of two or three of those factors).

Whenever a Star Fox game releases on a console that people actually own (SNES, N64, 3DS) and is a straightforward game with no bullshit gimmicks like being a discount Legend of Zelda or using uncomfortable touch controls with two screens, Star Fox sells reasonably well. Mnemeth compared Star Fox to Fire Emblem to say the latter is a bigger IP, but the best selling FE games have sold comparably to the best selling Star Fox games, only those FE games have the advantage of either being an original game on the Switch and the 3DS, while SF's best games were on older consoles with much smaller install bases. The only time that FE has outsold SF on the same console is Awakening and Echoes on the 3DS, and that was against a remake that had fewer years in between than Star Fox 2026 has after SF3D.

Saying all that to say that Star Fox is as big as Fire Emblem, especially when Nintendo actually gives people a version of SF that people want to play.

You wonder why every Star Fox game in the last two decades was bad? Designing a game is hard and circumstances change. Some gameplay ideas that worked in the past become hard to work with modern gamers and modern hardware. Star Fox ever only was successful on SNES and N64. At the time games with similar gameplay ideas thrived on PC: Tie Fighter, Wing Commander. But also on PC these franchises struggle in the last decades. Nintendo gave Star Fox multiple times a serious try. But it never worked out. Fans complain, but they can't design a better game. So did it occur to you, that Star Fox isn't working out anymore?

You say Fire Emblem and Star Fox are on equal footing. But you ignore that franchises rise and fall. The last good selling Star Fox game is 25 years in the past. Since then it struggles to break a million. For Fire Emblem it is the other way around: the franchise sells well since Awakening on the 3DS and the last console Switch holds with Three Houses the best selling title of the series. Star Fox is burnt out and every try so far to rekindle it has failed. Fire Emblem rides high. So yes, these days Fire Emblem is without a doubt the more successful series. Just look at franchise sales per decade. How much did Star Fox games sell in the 10s and 20s? How much Fire Emblem games?

I doubt Nintendo suddenly finds the magic formula to make Star Fox workable again. As I said, other franchises like Tie Fighter and Wing Commander failed as well. Nintendo is just stubborn and keeps trying against better knowledge.

So what do we think how Star Fox will sell? Better than Pokopia? No way. Better than Tomodachi Life? Doubtful. Better than Fire Emblem? Nope. Better than Rhythm Heaven? That actually could be a close fight. The Rhythm Heaven games on Wii and 3DS sold around a million. Star Fox might fall into the same category. So that is the comparison to look for. In the end I assume fans will say that this entry also did something wrong again.